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BUDGET 2010: Neither Fair Nor Fixing

Posted by David Cunliffe on May 20th, 2010

It’s Budget Day.  You’ll be hearing lots from us over the next few days and I hope many of you will join our Finance Team live here on Red Alert tonight at 8.30 pm.

Most New Zealanders already understand that a Budget that (at best) delivers only marginal gain to middle and lower income earners and a whopping great windfall to the top end, is not fair.  It is however, precsely what you would expect from National.

Equally important, the Budget as it has been foreshadowed will not fix the underlying problems of this economy: lack of savings, skills, innovation and exports.  These are exactly the themes Labour is pushing – as reflected in todays Dominion and Herald (note the Herald got the headline wrong).

If you don’t believe me on this – just refer to Swtizerland’s IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, which shows NZ slipping back for exactly the reasons Labour has been saying. 

Think about it, if the problems are insufficient savings, exports, skills and innovation, how on earth is raising GST and an income tax windfall for the wealthiest possibly going to address that?

It proves our underlying critique of this visionless National Government -  they had “nine long years” to think up policies to take the country forward, to deliver on the step change they campaigned for – and so far, nothing.

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Filed under: Budget, Cost of Living, GST, Tax, Tertiary education, Uncategorized, business, economic, economy, finance, food, low pay, politics, productivity, science
57 Comments

Nat rounds on govt foreshore proposal

Posted by Brendon Burns on April 26th, 2010

Ouch. Former National candidate and law lecturer David Round launched a blistering attack on the Government’s foreshore and seabed proposals in the Weekend Press

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/perspective/3614257/Time-to-draw-a-line-in-the-sand

“A betrayal of all non-Maori New Zealanders” from an insincere Attorney-General who “wants to sell us down the river”

“On the beaches we should draw a line in the sand,” says Round. Now where have we heard that before and from whom…

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Filed under: Attorney-General, M?ori, foreshore
11 Comments

ACC cuts coming to someone near you

Posted by Darien Fenton on February 8th, 2010

With the ACC Bill due to be reported back to parliament this Friday from Select Committee, watch out for a stepping up of opposition to ACC cutbacks and privatisation.

The ACC Futures Coalition and the leadership of last year’s “bikeoi”,  have teamed up to organise a march and rally on 16 February opposing the Government’s attacks on ACC.

Brent Hutchison, organiser of the bikeoi says :

“When we came here last year we were concerned about unfair levies.  We said we would be back, and now we will be – together with other groups who are feeling the impact of what the Government is doing to ACC. In November we were chanting ‘who’s next’ and now we know. It is the worker in the dangerous job, the seriously injured person who is to be forced off ACC weekly compensation on to a benefit, the victim of sexual abuse, the worker who is forced to use up all their holiday pay before being entitled to full weekly compensation and the worker who is deemed to be suffering less than 6% hearing loss. It is all New Zealanders who are next because we all rely on ACC as our backstop, and we will be there on 16 February to tell the Government to leave our scheme alone.”

And the CTU has developed three videos, which played on giant screens at the Westpac Stadium Queen’s Wharf and Courtenay Place during the Wellington Sevens game in the weekend.

Make sure you look out for the report back on Friday from the Select Committee considering the ACC bill.  You will see then if the government has taken any notice of those opposed to the slashing of entitlements in the bill – which was, by the way, almost every submitter.

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Filed under: ACC, protest
8 Comments

Easter Shopping – here we go again

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 19th, 2009

One of the members’ bills drawn from the ballot today was Todd McClay’s bill to liberalise Easter Shop Trading.   I have been in parliament four years and this is the third such bill, and I don’t imagine this one will be any easier to deal with than the previous bills.

There is a mess around the Shop Trading laws, with different rules for some .  I voted against Easter Sunday trading liberalisation in the last three bills, because retail workers only have 3.5 days in the year where they cannot be obliged to work.    As I said in the third reading debate of the last bill :

“We have a chance in the debate around this bill to put a halt to the increasing demands that we see on workers for more and more hours to be worked. It would be good if this parliament could agree that on one or two days of the year, we can put families before work.”

Todd McClay is talking about choice, but there’s not much choice for the workers.

But MPs do have a choice, because this will probably be a conscience vote.  You’d be surprised to see who voted for and against last time.

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Filed under: legislation
19 Comments

Alone in Lockie Land

Posted by Darien Fenton on November 9th, 2009

I spent Friday in Orewa, in the heart of Lockwood Smith’s Rodney electorate.

Orewa people aren’t that different to other people I meet north of the Harbour Bridge, although Orewa is populated by older residents, and that gives it unique issues to deal with.

Residents are still worried about the super city, with views about the boundaries going both for and against.

There’s quite a bit of anger about there being no night classes north of the Harbour Bridge, and particularly from community groups who were running self help courses with ACE funding.

There’s certainly pressure on the local economy, with people reporting an increase in job losses and requirements for more budgeting and career advice. There is no social or pensioner housing which puts pressure on those who need additional support.

But a constant question I encountered was this : How can Lockwood Smith represent the people of Orewa in parliament when he is the Speaker of the House and has to preside over the Parliament in an impartial manner?

I think it’s a fair question.

I’m not criticising the Speaker – I wouldn’t dare criticise such majesty. And I’m not saying that Lockwood isn’t doing his best for his constituents and lobbying within the government.

What the Orewa people told me is they want to hear their concerns reflected by their MP in the Parliament and their MP is unable to participate in debates.

I’m curious about your views.

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Filed under: community, parliament
15 Comments

Fairness @ Work under National?

Posted by Sue Moroney on November 4th, 2009

Thank goodness I don’t have a fragile ego (if I have one at all). In the past two weeks, the Nats have block-voted against hearing submissions on a petition I championed signed by nearly 16,000 other New Zealanders and they have also introduced a Bill reducing the right for all NZ workers to have a meal break – undoing legislation passed under Labour, based on a members’ bill I drafted.

But this posting is not about my ego, because that’s not the reason I’m am MP (can’t speak for others). I’m not taking it personally. After all “its not about me.”

It is about the thousands of school support staff, social workers and other ordinary fair-minded New Zealanders who the National Government took deliberate action against by block-voting to ensure they didn’t have to justify the axing of pay equity investigations for these hard-working New Zealanders.

And it is about workers who’s health and safety will be put at risk if National goes ahead with its plans to give employers the specific right to require workers to attend to their duties during their meal breaks and rest periods.

It is highly unusual for a select committee to refuse to hear submissions on a petition – particularly one of that size. However, the Nats were prepared to sacrifice the democratic principles of select committee procedures so that they weren’t put in the embarrassing position of having to defend the indefensible.

The Minister of Labour has already admitted that the Pay and Employment Equity Unit was closed down by her against the advice of her Department of Labour officials. Maybe the Nats blocked the hearing of submissions on the petition because they were worried about what the DOL would say in its submission?

Whatever the reason, David Bennett, Jackie Blue, Tau Henare, Allan Peachey and Michael Woodhouse should hang their heads in shame as the MPs who voted to block submissions being heard.

I bet none of them admit to having prevented the petition from being heard the next time the turn up at their local schools for a visit.

As for the right to a meal break at work, I don’t know about you but when I’m flying, I wanna know that the person in the sole-charge regional control tower is well-rested, alert, hydrated and has reasonable blood-sugar levels when they are giving important information to the pilot of my plane.

The Nats though, are passing legislation to ensure that they have to work through meal and rest breaks and in the process are subjecting all other NZ workers to the same possibility.

Not the brighter future they promised really, is it?

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Filed under: Pay Equity, Uncategorized, democracy, education, human rights, labour, legislation, national, select committee
10 Comments

English Outed

Posted by Pete Hodgson on October 28th, 2009

The A-G’s report into Bill English confirms that he does have a pecuiary interest in the house he sought to rent to the taxpayer for $47k.p.a. Here is the relevant quote: ‘the Crown was renting a property for Mr English from a trust in which he had an interest, and the arrangement was explicitly based on a view that he did not have an interest.’

That means he should never have received the money.

It means his ‘voluntary’ return of the money is no longer voluntary.

It means that the legal construct that said he (somehow) did not have an interest came nowhere near fooling the A-G. She applied common sense instead of legal shading. Bill English is a common sense fellow. He would have known his construct was self serving.

Further it now makes Bill English’s claim that he changed his trust deed ‘for personal and family reasons’, well, incredible. That is, a deceit. The truth, contained in both the A-G’s report and written questions is that Bill English’s family trust was first discussed in officialdom in Nov 08 and by about Dec 3 Bill had a clear idea what he needed to do. He changed the deed in Jan, signed a declaration that he had no pecuniary interest on Feb 1 and the cash flowed until the Dom asked questions months later when expenses were made public for the first time.

So this was a construct.

But I still haven’t got to the bottom of one aspect: given that no Minister has ever before sought to rent their house to the taxpayer at above backbench rates and conditions, new rules needed to be created to allow it. Who did the creating? My only clue is an email from officialdom that says the ‘ninth floor’ did. Mr Key has so far not answered that question. Best I try again.

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Filed under: Uncategorized, finance, media, national, parliament
18 Comments

News vs spin at TVNZ

Posted by Brendon Burns on October 28th, 2009

Pleased to see the two G-men, Guyon and Garner, both reported tonight on the Plain English promo. Espiner is fronting one of the programmes in the series. He and the News department were either not alerted or ignored in the decision to plug the whole series with 135 free adverts for Bill English. His report tonight basically branded TVNZ as being naive for not understanding that promoting the Minister of Finance so voraciously is “political” even if not intended. Good to see a journo prepared to focus in-house even if it may cause conniptions for the internal PR machine which maintains it’s there is nothing untoward with the shameless promotion of a Govt Minister.  What next? Education specials with Anne Tolley? ACC cuts explained by Nick Smith? Your Health with the Beautiful  Tony?

Garner took a similar line on Campbell live. No doubt Tv3 will be enjoying its state rival being bagged by its many including its own.

Tomorrow night sees the launch of the Tivo personal digital recorder by TVNZ with a big guest list. Not sure anyone from Dipton attending.

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Filed under: broadcasting, media
10 Comments

When a break is not a break

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 27th, 2009

The government tabled its Employment Relations (Meals and Rest Breaks) Amendment Bill in the House today.   I’ve had a brief look at it and what it seems to do is :

  1. Remove the requirement for breaks to be half an hour for a meal break and ten minutes for a tea break and replace it with a requirement to “provide the employee with a reasonable opportunity during the employees work period for rest, refreshment and attending to personal matters”.
  2. Provide that the times and duration of the rest and meal breaks are by agreement.
  3. Provide for “compensatory measures” if the employer doesn’t provide rest breaks.
I’m not going to rush to judgement on this, but I am uneasy about any law that leaves things this wide open.   Labour brought in this law for the workers who weren’t getting breaks at all and I can’t see anything in this amended bill that gives me any comfort that we won’t be reverting to the situation we had before the original bill.  I am even more uneasy when I see that the bill has to receive consent by 30 December.  That means more urgency and no chance for anyone to submit on the bill. 
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Filed under: labour, legislation
15 Comments

Free to air no free ride

Posted by Brendon Burns on October 19th, 2009

The debacle over Rugby World Cup coverage shows sometimes governments must intervene.

That requires better than a Prime Minister belatedly and brutally getting involved  to restore order to the chaos of two state agencies competing against each other.

The RWC fiasco is not in isolation but is another example of the problems created by the Government’s refusal to have any policies and rules for broadcasting.  A month ago, TVNZ announced it was negotiating with Sky to pass on the broadcast rights to next year’s Commonwealth Games. Free-to-air coverage will be limited to Sky subsidiary Prime. Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman was relaxed. He said the days of free-to-air television covering major sporting events were over.

Key’s supposed concern about Maori Television’s bid was that it would not give full coverage. So where was the concern about Prime becoming the vehicle for free-to-air coverage of the Commonwealth Games? Prime’s household penetration is less than Maori Television’s.

Until last week, the Government’s broadcasting policy has been not to intervene; it rejected a review of competition issues, stating there were no competition issues posed by Sky’s growing dominance (driven by sports coverage.)

The outcome is more than just bruising to the reputations of Dr Coleman and other Ministers. It shows if you want viable free-to-air options for major sporting events into the future, there has to be some consideration of creating a playing field which allows for competition by free to air channels.

The alternative is to kiss goodbye to watching athletes and sports people  wearing a Silver Fern on their chest and competing for our nation – unless you can pay for that privilege.

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Filed under: Uncategorized
11 Comments

Another day, another protest

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 16th, 2009

img00044-20091016-13552 Today, 2700 hospital cleaners, kitchen workers, orderlies and security guards took action outside hospitals from Kaitaia to the Bluff in protest at the National Government’s pay freeze.  These workers have a starting pay rate of $14.62 an hour, or just $30,410 a year for full-time workers.

These pics are from the picket outside North Shore Hospital in Wayne Mapp’s electorate.  The workers live in the electorates of Mapp, Coleman and Key, who were nowhere to be seen today of course.

They’re upset that Bill English is suggesting that the pay freeze could go on for five years, even although the last Labour government funded a 3.1% increase for this year.

In 2008, the hospital service workers pay moved from a start rate on the minimum wage to the minimum of $14.62 after Labour funded and ring-fenced money to ensure these low paid workers got a decent pay increase.

Trouble is, much of that pay increase is being eroded, with ACC levy increases and cost of living increases. And more protest to come – privatisation of prisons, ACC and ACE cuts, redundancies – you name it.

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Filed under: protest, public services
31 Comments

Climate Change at the Finance and Expenditure Committee

Posted by Charles Chauvel on October 15th, 2009

Last year, I chaired the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) while we heard submissions on the Emissions Trading Scheme (Mark 1). The Committee received 259 submissions. We heard in person from 161 of them in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, and by ‘phone and video conference, over 58 hours of hearings, having closed submissions on 29 February and reported back to the House on 16 June.

At the time, Nick Smith, then the Nats’ climate change spokesperson, screamed and yelled that this was a terrible, rushed process.

Today, FEC started hearing submissions on Nick Smith’s bill to amend the ETS. We have about the same number of submissions, and about the same number wanting to be heard, as last year. Submissions closed on 13 October. We have a report-back date of 16 November. As Carbon News points out the Nats tried to severely limit the hearing of submissions on the amendments, but were outvoted today. Everyone who submitted on the actual bill – and asked to be heard – will be. The problem is that this is all to be done by in Wellington by next Thursday, so submitters will have very little notice of the need to appear, and no doubt many will miss out, especially those who are not Wellington-based. We might manage 30 hours of hearings.

All this on amendments that Treasury says could add 8% of GDP to NZ’s debt by 2030, for a scheme that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says cannot possibly help us meet even the Nat’s tiny pollution reduction targets.

What a great Government they are turning out to be.

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Filed under: climate change, environment, ets
9 Comments

Because I said I would

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 14th, 2009

ps-staff-picket1I said I would post photos of the protest today with no Labour MPs.  There’s many more, but there were at least 100 Parliamentary Services staff outside parliament today.

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Filed under: public services, workforce
9 Comments

Cash for the IRB

Posted by Trevor Mallard on October 13th, 2009

Good on John Key. He has decided to subsidise a TVNZ + TV3 + Maori TV in a joint bid to RWC Ltd ie IRB.  So he has pushed up the price. Can someone tell me what we as taxpayers have gained from this subsidy.   The first media report is below:-

Update :- Interesting attack on National from Maori Party on this. Flavell accussed English of being conflicted as Minister of Finance and ownership Minister TVNZ. Ignored the fact that Sharples Minister for TPK and Maori TV.

A real shambles in the House and even Key was blushing.

2nd Update     Audrey Young here.  Makes it clear the Maori Party knows it has been shafted.

(more…)

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Filed under: Budget, broadcasting, media
20 Comments

NZ on Air still inquiring

Posted by Brendon Burns on October 12th, 2009

Interesting lead on TV3 tonight. D Garner has NZ on Air document which he suggests shows Melissa Lee is still being questioned about her returns for her Asia Down Under programmes. The issue of whether she used NZ on Air money to make ads for the National Party in 2008 came up during the Mt Albert by-election. Lee was given the all-clear the day before the Mt Albert by-election. Now it is suggested NZ on Air is still after  explanations why money was for unmade programmes was not returned. Broadcasting Minister Jonathan “Maestro” Coleman reportedly knew about the issue in August but has said nothing. Should add a dimension to questions on broadcasting in the House this week.

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Filed under: broadcasting
10 Comments

ACC figures nonsense

Posted by Trevor Mallard on October 10th, 2009

When Nick Smith told a pack of lies around the appointment of John Judge as ACC Board chair, including to the Select Committee I sat on, the Labour Party focussed on Smith because Judge had a good reputation for commercial nous and had done a good job as Te Papa Board chair.

His statements yesterday are a real worry. 

He is working on the false assumption that money for all the future payments for past injuries has to be collected this (or last) year. That is just nonsense.

Our government took a decision to collect a bit more each year to shift the scheme from one that was “pay as you go” to one where the future costs of this years accidents were collected this year and a bit of the future costs of previous years accidents was also collected.

Levy levels depend on how many years are taken to do the catch up. To characterise it as a scheme at risk of falling over reflects badly on Mr Judge.

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Filed under: Budget, finance, national, privatisation, public services, select committee
23 Comments

If it’s good enough for the Aussies, why not us?

Posted by Darien Fenton on October 2nd, 2009

Before I left New Zealand on Monday, I talked with Shelley and her workmates, who  were made redundant last week by Aussie owned company, Transfield. Apart from the shabby way they were treated during the process, the unkindest cut of all was being laid off with nothing to tide them over while they look for other jobs.  

So I’ve been checking Transfield out while I’m here in Sydney and guess what?  If Shelley and her friends had been employed by Transfield in Australia, they would have received at  the very least the minimum statutory redundancy entitlement of 4 weeks pay after the first year and 2 weeks pay for each year of service after that.  

Redundancy compensation is considered a basic entitlement in Australia and the Rudd government have implemented it as one of the ten minimum conditions every worker in Australia must have.  I asked people in the know what the reaction had been when Rudd brought in the new federal minimum redundancy requirements. It seems there was no wailing and gnashing of teeth and no doom and gloom predictions about the end of business and cost to jobs. 

It seems such a normal thing here and Aussies are pretty incredulous that New Zealand doesn’t have what they see as fundamental fairness for workers if they are laid off through no fault of their own.

Perhaps it’s because redundancy compensation’s not new in Australia.  For years there’s been a mix of State and Federal minima, along with entitlements bargained in awards and enterprise agreements.  But neither is it new in New Zealand.  73% of union agreements have redundancy compensation provisions, but as the Transfield situation shows, few employers will voluntarily pay redundancy pay if they don’t have to.  And relying on redundancy provisions in collective agreements means they are often up for grabs in bargaining, as we’ve seen this week with Parliamentary Service staff taking action to prevent that happening.

So, if it’s good enough for Australian workers, why isn’t it good enough for New Zealanders who are losing their jobs?

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Filed under: redundancy, workforce
16 Comments

Corruption bill speech

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 25th, 2009

Thanks to all the kind emails and calls re Labour’s performance in the House on the money laundering and remuneration authority legislation last night. Our team was on fire. Here is 5min that highlights the nats problem.

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Filed under: Budget, Pay Equity, economic, economy, finance, parliament, poverty
17 Comments

Money laundering bill

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 24th, 2009

Quick post cos meetings @ dinner break but we are onto the Anti-Money Laundering legislation.

And there are some real gifts, under the bill as introduced Bill English is caught as a politically exposed person and the Endeavour Trust is also caught.

The Bill deals with the United Nations convention against corruption and I made the point in the house that in many countries setting up or changing a trust arrangement with the effect of  both masking and  increasing the funding to a party associated with a Minister would be regarded as corruption.

It also deals with situations where there are insufficient details on a customer – and an example would be where the true beneficiaries of a taxpayer funded transaction are not revealed.

There is a requirement on Internal Affairs to report suspicious transactions. what is not clear is whether it has an extra requirement to report transactions it itself has been a party to.

Clause 43 deals with the disclosure of information and as the bill was introduced would certainly have been helpful.

The debate continues at 7.30pm

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Filed under: Uncategorized, parliament
8 Comments

Price of alcohol

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on September 22nd, 2009

This is my second post on matters raised in the Law Commission’s review of Alcohol Legislation. The previous post on the Purchase Age is here.

The question of pricing comes up a lot in discussions about ways to reduce harm caused by alcohol abuse. Much of the evidence available suggests that increasing the retail price of alcoholic beverages does in fact lead to a decrease in binge drinking and other harmful activities.

You may or may not agree with this. If you do, the next question is how best to go about achieving this.

The two options are:

  1. Increasing excise tax
  2. Establishing a minimum price for alcoholic beverages

These two are not mutually exclusive and could be used either in combination or separately.

So the two questions are: Should we be increasing the price of alcohol and if so how best do we go about it?

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Filed under: alcohol and other drugs, health, justice
66 Comments

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